Dragon Sd.Kfz.265.

[Steve Wheeler]

This project stalled in summer 2010, for family health reasons; but I have finally found the motivation to restart.

The build started out conventionally enough, but I thought I'd try a bit of interior detail..... at first just the crew compartment. Panzer Tracts has a couple of interior shots, and some Pz1 sectional drawings, and I obtained a very useful set of interior photos from Bovington Tank Museum.

Then I came across the 'Great Wall' engine kits....and the Maybach HL42 had enough useable parts to begin a detailed engine compartment as well. Again, Panzer Tracts was very useful.

All the research, adapting kit parts, and serious scratch-building makes progress rather slow, but very satisfying.

The photos show where I've got to so far.... I'll post more as things start to happen.

[Tim Coulson]

Nice progress and scratch building Steve.

Glad you've got the image posting sorted at last!

Tim

[Jamie Tainton]

Wow that looks pretty great Steve! Thanks for the share? Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you with the posting of photos or any other tips for the place.

[Dario Risso]

Nice work, Steve! Love the signal flags!
Darío

[Steve Wheeler]

Thanks everyone.

I found a few more pictures.... the engine bay.

[Tim Coulson]

Great work and scratch building on the engine bay.

[Steve Wheeler]

Here's the latest progress.

It's the rack for the FU2 receiver and transformer, based on photos from Bovington and Panzer Tracts.

The little triangular mounting blocks came from an Aber P.E. kit. The rest is nickelsilver strip, soldered using a Resistance Soldering Unit and solder cream. It was very fiddly, and needed some ingenuity devising holding jigs... and I used different melting point solders to avoid everything falling apart.

The photo shows how little spare space there is, so I plan to add locating strips to assist with the job of super-gluing it in place once other work and painting is completed.

The other radio set, at the rear of the compartment has a much simpler box arrangement.... thank goodness!

[Dennis McQuillen]

Steve,

I really like the idea of printing pics of the radios and using those. I have never convincingly painted a radio.

When taking a close up picture (or any picture of a model for that matter), I always take the pic from a few feet away and use editing software to crop the image. I use Photoscape at the moment. If you do that the whole picture will be in focus and you will get better quality.

The engine bay looks great!

Dennis

[Roy Schlicht]

Nice, can not ever have enough Panzer I based vehicles around. Look forward to seeing this one finished.

Roy